Coming Home
by Talia Falcon
Summary: Shoebox-inspired. When Remus dies, who waits for him on the other side?


Home-Coming

**Coming Home**

Sirius Black is pacing. This is something he's gotten _really_ good at lately, having finally got the stride length just right and his hands settled at just the right depth in his pockets. He is full of restless energy, a dog who no one has bothered to a walk in quite a long time. When his hands leave his pockets it is only to rake through his hair, which is long and black and shaggy.

He looks about seventeen or eighteen. It makes sense. He had _liked_ being about seventeen or eighteen. There hadn't been any more school, but he hadn't been quite an adult. And anyway, he had been quite attractive around then. Not that he hadn't _always_ been attractive, of course, but he felt he had been, in his late teens, particularly stunning.

The only time lately that Sirius has stopped moving is when James is around, or Lily. It's not that they are a calming influence, exactly, he just doesn't want them to see him in the state he's in. Prongs is always looking sidewise at him, and Sirius has a sinking feeling that he knows exactly what has him pacing up and down. The two of them are around a lot, but Padfoot has yet to get his fellow Marauder alone, which is what he wants, because he really doesn't want Lily hearing what he has to say, not yet. He knows he should have said something already, but two years have gone by awfully fast and he's gone so long not saying _anything_ and now he's running out of time.

Well, there is one other time Padfoot ceases his endless pacing. And that's when he catches a glimpse or a scent or a sense of Remus. They're not common, but they drift in every once in a while, and they send him spiraling back down into memories every time.

"_Sirius, these pictures are terribly embarrassing. Oh god, how did I ever agree to that?"_

"_I happen to think they are stunningly attractive, Mooney McMooneykins. Look-look-look, I'm in them all, they must be good."_

"_What was I thinking, letting you kiss me? In public! Someday I will have children, Sirius, and unless I burn this right now this very instant, they will find this. Inevitably. You will probably give it to them as a twisted Christmas present and then I will have to murder you."_

"_I forbid you to burn it. Look, we'll put it in the box with everything else, right down at the bottom, under the socks."_

"_Oh, god, look, now you're nuzzling my neck – There are socks in there?"_

"_...yes."_

"_Do I dare ask you why?"_

"_Well, remember when I was McGoogly for Halloween and I couldn't get the robe to fill out right, and – "_

"_Yes alright! Just... just make sure James won't see it."_

Sirius has to bite back a sob that, surprisingly, expresses a strong desire to come out of his throat and meet the nice people. He's sure that photo-strip is still at the bottom of the shoebox that James enchanted all those years ago to hold everything even distantly related to their Maraudering activities, under the socks. He's not entirely sure where the box is, although he sincerely hopes it will stay in the hands of someone trustworthy or at least oblivious enough to keep its secrets until the last of them shows up here. After that, it will no longer be a problem – or if it is, none of them will be in any position to worry about it.

He goes back to pacing. Padfoot has been pacing – man and dog – on and off for two years. He doesn't know how James and Lily stand it. Not only have they been dead sixteen years, but they've had to watch their son go through hell during most of them. Not that he'd been any luckier in that regard, as he'd participated in some of it. Although, he supposes in considering his friends' sanity, they do have each other. Whereas he has only himself.

But he's been hearing Mooney's voice a lot more often. And he's been smelling that wolfish-mannish-bookish scent that belongs to Remus and no one else. He doesn't have the Potters' talent for looking into the lives of the living, but lately he's been trying awfully hard. Sometimes it works, and he's seen Remus standing next to Tonks, looking worried, Remus holding a baby, and very recently, Remus fighting, face set, scars livid –

There's an unpleasant and very solid thud behind Sirius, and a sort of strangled whimper. He whirls, groping for a wand that he still misses having, and gapes at the skinny, familiar shape on the floor.

"_Remus?"_

There's a groan that is achingly familiar to Sirius, and then the heap on the floor – which has its arm over its eyes – says, "I smell dog. I must be hallucinating. Yes, that's it. Falling masonry has hit me on the head, I am lying unconscious on the floor of the Great Hall hallucinating and I still smell dog. Why do I smell dog, Sirius. Even my memories of you are sullied by the smell of faintly damp wolfhound, I can't even get rid of them when I hallucinate. Why do you suppose this is? And why do I feel like I'm thirty years younger?"

"Shutup, shutup, shutup," chants Sirius as he half-kneels, half-falls beside Remus, who also looks about eighteen, and grabs the arm that is stubbornly remaining across his friend's eyes. "Look at me, c'mon Mooney, I'm right here!"

"No." Remus is as stubborn as ever. "If I look at you I'll wake up and I'd rather this last as long as possible."

"You're _dead_, you bloody great git! You won't _be_ waking up!"

"Oh. Well, in that case..." And Remus sits up, and looks into Sirius's eyes.

It is the first time they've looked right at each other since they were young. After Sirius had gotten out of Azkaban, they'd seen each other, but it hadn't been the same. Now all those years – long, painful, lonely years – drop likes stones from their shoulders. Remus flings his arms around his friend and buries his face in Sirius's shoulder, breathing in the old familiar scents of boy and dog and wet grass. "I _missed_ you, you know that? Every single bloody day," he whispers, knowing from experience that Sirius can hear him.

Sirius pushes him away a little, kisses him once, hard and boyish, and then holds Remus so tightly he thinks he hears his ribs cracking. "Yeah," says Sirius, his breath stirring the other boy's hair. "Yeah. I know."


End file.
